Group velocity locked vector dissipative solitons in a high repetition rate fiber laser

Opt Express. 2016 Aug 8;24(16):18718-26. doi: 10.1364/OE.24.018718.

Abstract

Vectorial nature of dissipative solitons (DSs) with high repetition rate is studied for the first time in a normal-dispersion fiber laser. Despite the fact that the formed DSs are strongly chirped and the repetition rate is greater than 100 MHz, polarization locked and polarization rotating group velocity locked vector DSs can be formed under 129.3 MHz fundamental mode-locking and 258.6 MHz harmonic mode-locking of the fiber laser, respectively. The two orthogonally polarized components of these vector DSs possess distinctly different central wavelengths and travel together at the same group velocity in the laser cavity, resulting in a gradual spectral edge and small steps on the optical spectrum, which can be considered as an auxiliary indicator of the group velocity locked vector DSs. Moreover, numerical simulations well confirm the experimental observations and further reveal the impact of the net cavity birefringence on the properties of the formed vector DSs.